126 Days
by Cath1
Summary: Post LTDA. JK. She finds that the more she thinks of him, the further he seems to be out of reach. Chapter 4 added.
1. Day 3

126 Days

Day 3

Author: Cath

Disclaimer: Characters, etc, are not mine. They belong to some corporate types and JJ Abrams and a whole bunch of other people that aren't me. You're surprised at this admission, aren't you…!

Summary: Post series 2. Jate. Sawyer and Kate have made it back to the camp, but how? And where is Jack?

Notes: This is my second Lost fic, which I promised myself I'd never write. But as soon as I start reading fics in a new fandom I always get sucked in. Let me know if you enjoy this first instalment as I plan to continue if there is interest.

---

Day 3

Pain. This is all she feels when she first wakes up. Her leg throbs and when she tries to move it, pain shoots down it. In her shoulder there is a dull ache. Her stomach advertises its hunger loudly.

She tries opening her eyes. Slowly, but then closes them again as the brightness overcomes her. She doesn't recollect having seen sunlight in days, and it disorientates her. Eventually she opens her eyes again, shields them from the sunlight as they adjust.

She hears the voices of others surrounding her slowly come into focus: Sawyer, Sayid, Sun, Hurley. And for a moment she wonders if more of them were abducted by the others.

Her eyes fully adjusted, she moves herself so that she can observe her location. Myriad emotions take over her: shock, confusion, fear, relief.

The beach. She sees the beach. She sees the ocean. She sees their camp. She sees all those whom she'd never expected to see again.

"Morning, Freckles," Sawyers voice greets her, and she manoeuvres herself slightly to see him. He appears only mildly injured, bruises and scratches scattered across his arms and face.

"Where…what…?" She struggles to form a coherent sentence that fully sums up her thoughts.

"You've been drifting in and out of consciousness for a few days," Sayid informs her. "We could only hope that you would recover without medical treatment."

"Where's Jack?" she asks. Is he too injured to advise, she wonders silently.

No one answers. She looks from person to person: Hurley shifts uncomfortably, Sun looks at her compassionately, Sayid looks down for a moment as if gaining the courage to speak, Sawyer half-grins awkwardly; it is as good as an admission of worry from him.

She doesn't like their response. She sits herself up; feels too vulnerable lying down. She repeats her request, but this time more demanding: "Where's Jack?"

"Jack… he didn't come back," Sawyer replies, and her levels of paranoia increase at Sawyer's lack of sobriquet.

"The others still have him? Is someone going back for him?" she demands. She struggles to retain her composure; the effort of ignoring the pain in her leg weakens her emotionally, and this is combined with an overall feeling of exhaustion causing her to lack an ability to remain stoic.

Again there is no answer, only uncomfortable silence. "What happened?" she asks. "How did we get back here, Sawyer?"

"You don't remember?" Sayid queries, a concerned glance towards Sun.

"No," she responds. "I don't remember much of anything. What happened?" she inquires again, moving herself around to face Sayid, the most likely person to answer her questions truthfully. She unintentionally jolts her leg as she shifts, and is unable to mask the pain. She grits her teeth and attempts to even her breathing out. It does not go unnoticed.

Finally she glances down at her leg, but it is hidden beneath wrapped cloth. Blood has seeped through the cloth in various areas and she comes to realise that this is no minor injury. She feels light-headed, as if noticing for the first time that she is not as well as she had thought. Tiredness washes over her against her will.

"I think that now is not the time for answers to these questions," Sayid responds, observing her waning energy.

She tries to fight against the tiredness, but her efforts are futile. "Is Jack alive?" she asks quietly.

There is a pause. "We don't know," Sayid replies. And that is the last she remembers before yielding to exhaustion.

---

_She is stumbling blindly over ground as rain pours down on them. A hand on her arm guides her, but not gently. _

_Fear. She feels fear and anxiety and a hundred other negative emotions that she tries to keep in check. She needs to remain calm, to try and figure out some sort of plan to get them out of this situation. But she finds it difficult to focus on anything beyond walking and anticipating the worst._

_They seem to walk for hours, but she cannot concentrate on time and distance under the cover of darkness, and her emotions play with time, making seconds stretch out indefinitely._

_After what seems like hours, they come to a stop, and she tries not to think about what the next stage of their ordeal may bring. But then after some hushed voices, drowned out by the sound of rain hitting leaves, they move again. _

_They walk on, on ever more unsteady ground, and at one point her ankle gives way. She is prevented from going over by the hand that remains strongly on her arm. Her ankle throbs with every further step, and the discomfort draws out the time even more._

_Eventually they must come to a clearing as she no longer feels trees brush by her side, branches attacking her._

_They stop, a door opens loudly, they move forward, and then she feels a cold, damp atmosphere associated with being inside some place where light is permitted no access. Her hands are untied, heavy breathing, footsteps leading away, and then the door is closed._

_She circles her wrists, which ache from their maintained position, and then draws them up to her head to remove the hood. _

_Her eyes adjust to the darkness, and she notices that she is not alone. She shares glances with Jack and Sawyer as if to silently question what the hell they should do next._

She wakes up breathless.

---

End Part One.


	2. Day 6

_Thanks for the reviews for chapter one! Again let me know if you enjoy this part as then I know whether to continue or not! Italics indicates flashback._

Day 6

Boredom. Fatigue. Pain. These are her primary feelings over the last few days. Everything requires far more effort than usual, and a large part of her day is taken up by mundane tasks. She has started to eat and drink again, and she is back on a diet of fruit, fish, and crackers courtesy of Dharma. She is able to have conversations that only last up to about twenty minutes before needing to rest again, and it frustrates her intensely.

Sun stays with her a lot, talks to her, gets her food, and treats her injuries. She has even managed to convince Hurley to get the wheelchair out for her so that she could get some air, but when back among the other survivors she finds their pitying looks and questions about her health unbearable.

But still there is no information: the people she asks cannot give her answers, and Sayid and Sawyer are never around when she is awake.

She is alone this time when she wakes. She sits up slowly, looks around. She is hungry and thirsty, but her water bottle is not within reach and there is no food in the vicinity. She curses her dependency on others and does not want to shout out for help. She does not want to accept help, period, but these last few days she has had no choice.

She twists round, making the decision to try and stand on her uninjured leg. She places it on the ground then slowly moves the other one. She cannot deny the fact that it hurts, but the pain is not as intense as only a few days ago, and so she continues with her endeavour to stand.

She is somewhat successful. Standing still on one leg is manageable, but in order to travel, she has to move her injured leg and this is no small accomplishment. Defeated, she sits down again, angry and frustrated.

She hears movement outside the tent, and turns to see Sayid standing at the entrance.

"I have brought the crutches for you in anticipation that you may wish to get out of here," he smiles. She gratefully accepts them, and tries to stand again. There is still pain, but she is willing to put up with it in order to gain her independence back.

"Thank you," she replies.

"Where would you like to go?" Sayid asks.

"Not allowed out on my own yet?" she queries, but it is with some humour: she can cope with being escorted this once.

"I would like to talk to you," he replies.

Slowly, hesitantly, she starts moving on the crutches. It is more difficult than she had anticipated, as the sand lacks the support of concrete, but she doesn't complain.

They move away from the camp, along the beach, and although she knows that she will tire soon and have to rest, she enjoys this brief moment of freedom.

"What happened?" she asks eventually, repeating her request of several days ago.

"What do you remember?" he asks, cautiously.

"We were taken by the others to a room. We were there a few days, but I don't remember anything else," she admits. It irritates her that she cannot rely on her own memory.

"All I can tell you is what I know," Sayid informs her. She stops moving, tired, and Sayid sits down. She joins him, glad to have a rest. "I don't know how you escaped the camp," he explains. "I was walking through the jungle, trying to find tracks that would lead me to you. I heard something in the distance, and I hid, fearing that it was them. The noise moved nearer to me, and eventually I saw that it was Sawyer. He was holding you up, but only barely. You both had lost weight, and I could see that he was tired. You had been shot in the knee, and had other injuries, so I had to carry you. Sawyer explained to me that they were after you both, that you had escaped. We continued on, back through the jungle. Fortunately, there was no evidence of the others having followed us," he pauses for a moment, and appears to debate whether or not to continue.

"What?" she asks.

"You kept repeating "Left Jack behind. Gotta go back for him. He had to stay." You were barely conscious." He pauses once more. "And then you said: "They're going to kill Jack. They're going to kill all of us.""

---

_Almost immediately, Sawyer starts arguing with Jack._

"_You got us into this, hero, you gonna get us out?" he demands. _

_It escalates from there, bitter words and posturing, and right now she cannot deal with this. The only way out is to work together against the others, she thinks, but she is too tired to try to reason._

"_Stop this, both of you," she commands. Her words are not enough._

_She looks around the room, trying to figure out an easy way to escape, but it is futile. There are four concrete walls, a low concrete ceiling, and a metal door. It is locked from the outside. She wants to shout and scream and cry, but it would get her nowhere, and she fights her emotions._

_Fatigue washes over her. The events of the day have been too much for her, and she craves rest. She awkwardly limps over to one of the walls, leans against it for a moment, and then slides down it slowly. _

_The shouting stops. She looks over at Jack and Sawyer and notices them looking back at her. She must look worse than she imagined._

"_Let me take a look at it," Jack says, nodding towards her ankle._

"_It's too dark. You're not gonna be able to see anything," she argues._

_But Jack is unwilling to give in, and she is too tired to argue effectively._

_He sits down in front of her, takes her ankle, removes her boot and pushes her sock down. He presses his fingers gently on her ankle and for a moment, all she can feel is the heat of his touch. He gently probes her ankle._

_  
"Tell me where it hurts," he directs._

_She closes her eyes, concentrates on the feel of his fingers moving up and down her ankle and lower leg. She informs him where it hurts. _

"_It's probably a sprain. You're going to need to rest it for a while," he informs her. His hand comes to rest on her ankle._

"_Uh huh," she replies, too exhausted to be more creative in a response._

_His hand does not move. She relishes in the feel of its contact. She shivers._

"_Cold?" he asks._

"_Yeah," she replies, and it's the truth. _

"_Well, I think we're clean out of blankets," Jack comments. He releases her ankle, moves beside her, and puts his arm around her, rubbing his hand up and down on her arm to create heat. It helps a little, as does the heat emanating from his body. She leans against him, too tired and overwhelmed by their abduction to maintain her guard. _

_She opens her eyes briefly as she hears Sawyer move across the room. He makes no comment on her sitting against Jack, but she sees a quick glimpse of an expression fall across his features before he hides it. She is too tired to interpret it._

_Unintentionally, she falls asleep against Jack's shoulder. _

---

End part two


	3. Day 10

_Again, many thanks for the reviews. Have now planned out the basic outline for the whole fic and it's gone in a completely different direction than originally intended! For those who are questioning whether or not I've killed off Jack, you'll have to wait a bit longer to find out… Italics still indicate flashbacks. This chapter is much more J/K focussed. _

Day 10

She takes an antibiotic tablet and washes it down with water. It sticks in her throat uncomfortably. She downs more water. Despite the fact that Jack is no longer with them, she has learned enough about medicine under his tutelage to know how to prevent wound infection.

As the days have gone on, his absence strikes her harder. She begins to realise just how big a part of her life he was. He is.

She misses his seriousness, his teasing, his protectiveness. She misses her first glimpse of him in the day, particularly on days where he wore a sleeveless shirt so that she could wordlessly try and interpret his tattoos.

She finds it near impossible to get the image of him out of her head.

She finds it near impossible to get her words to Sayid out of her head: "They're going to kill Jack. They're going to kill all of us." She tries to remember why she had such conviction that this was the case, but she fails. She still cannot remember anything beyond the first few days, and it increasingly frustrates her.

She hopes desperately that her convictions were wrong; that Jack is not dead and that she had no part to play in his potential demise.

But she cannot convince herself of this; her life experience tells her that those who get close to her are ultimately doomed, and she doesn't expect that Jack is the exception. Jack, who was just a good guy and could do so much better than her.

She tries to get on with her life, but finds that there is so little to occupy her mind that she cannot help but dwell on things that have happened.

Her sleep is increasingly interrupted with scenes and moments that may not have happened but that haunt her in her waking hours none-the-less.

She doesn't talk to the others so much any more. She doesn't like their questions, mostly since she cannot answer them. She cannot stand their sympathetic looks; the idea that she needs to be comforted. The pain is self-inflicted and she needs no one to help her with it.

She uses the crutches to assist her with getting to the beach. She has been practicing over the last few days and has grown in confidence. She sits down near to the water and thinks about all the times in the past when she has taken this position.

Claire comes to sit beside her. And she hates more than anything the way that she misses Jack; the way that she wishes it was him who came to sit next to her. They don't talk and she prefers it this way, just listening to the sound of the water caressing the sand. It gives her something to focus on as she tries to piece together her missing days in hopes that she can answer the questions that she most wants to know.

"You okay?" Claire asks eventually.

"I'm fine," she replies, but the more she hears herself say this, the less she is convinced.

These days, all she knows is that things are not the same without Jack. And she hates herself increasingly for needing him.

---

_The concrete is cold against her back. Her neck aches from maintaining an awkward position and she moves it side to side. She opens her eyes, adjusting to the light coming in through the door, and takes more than a moment to remember where she is._

_She hears the sound of something scraping across the floor, a metallic sound, and she doesn't like its harsh reverberations._

"_Morning, sunshine," a patronising voice greets them, and she cannot see its face because of the silhouette effect of the light. "Breakfast is served. Everyone get ready to use the bathroom in twenty minutes." And then the door screeches on its hinges, metal against metal as the lock is put in place, and darkness returns. _

_It takes a while for her eyes to get used to the darkness. Eventually, she see Sawyer lying on the floor opposite, awake but unmoving. She feels Jack still to her right as he shifts and moves his limbs. _

"_Well, it's like a five star hotel here," Sawyer comments grumpily as he looks at their food offerings. "What's next, chocolates on the pillow? Maid service?"_

_She doesn't blame him for being irritable, but she is too hungry to think too much about what the lumpen objects consist of._

_Her anxiety hasn't lessened any with sleep. She wants to know answers: why are they here? What is going to happen to them? And a million other questions that she hasn't yet got the words for._

_True to his word, twenty minutes later she is dragged outside, hood over her head, to a makeshift bathroom. It is clean, that she can say at least._

_She is returned to the holding cell, and for a few minutes she is alone. As the time passes she begins to worry about what has happened to Sawyer and to Jack, but then the door opens again and a figure is pushed through. _

_It is Jack. And she is relieved that at least the two of them are safe. She waits for the return of Sawyer, but twenty minutes later he is still missing._

_She would pace if she felt that it would have any benefit, would shout and bang on the door and ask what the hell is going on, but she is acutely aware that the others don't plan on divulging their actions._

_She moves over to the door, waiting for his return. She gets increasingly agitated._

"_Where is he, Jack? Where is he?" she demands, although she knows as well as he does that he cannot answer._

_He walks over to her, places a comforting hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her, but she recognises that he is as equally fraught as she. "He'll be alright," he promises, trying to convince himself as much as her. "He's Sawyer," he says as if this is an explanation. _

_She concentrates on the feel of his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to ground her emotions and prevent herself from a panic that will benefit no one. _

_But it is no use. There are too many unknowns and too much fear and she finds it difficult to cope. Her breathing hastens, her throat aches with tears she refuses to shed, and her mind slideshows every worst possible scenario._

_And then she hears his voice. "1…. 2…. 3…. 4…. 5…." She joins in mentally. And then she finds herself in his embrace, her head against his neck, and she is calmer._

"_We're going to make it through this, Kate. Sawyer's gonna be fine and we're gonna make it out of here." _

_And she tries to believe him._

---

Finis


	4. Day 17

_For those who asked – nope, not the end yet! But it is the last update for a few days as am going away – should be able to update again late next week sometime. _

Day 17

A new hierarchy begins to emerge in Jack's absence.

To her, it feels akin to an opposing government fighting to take power: there is struggle for each participant to have his voice heard, and each voice wants only to shout out louder the differences from their rivals.

There is a natural leader: Sayid. But he is one of the few to demonstrate reverence towards his predecessor. His leadership style is similar to Jack's: thoughtful, intelligent, but somewhat reticent.

But others vie for power and recognition, and the camp's precarious harmony starts to crack, and she fears that without attention it will shatter like shards of glass; numerous and varying in size and with the potential to cause irreparable damage.

Fear bubbles to the surface and it causes people to behave irrationally, impulsively.

Life on the island is once again without escapism of any type, and there is an undercurrent of tension prevalent.

Amidst all this, she feels herself withdrawing yet further from their uncertain society. She stares out to sea for hours on end, in an uncharacteristic trance-like state.

Others join her occasionally, particularly when they seek isolation from their daily life.

Her leg heals quicker than she could have imagined and she is able to put pressure on it without extensive pain. She tries to practice walking without assistance from the crutches as much as possible, and it is this which gives her a sense of purpose.

Soon she will be able to go back into the jungle.

Soon she will be able to go and find Jack and bring him back, and restore harmony to the camp.

But with each moment that these thoughts pass through her mind, she has equal moments where she recalls that she does not know where he is.

She does not know if he is alive.

And even if she knew that he was alive and his location, she does not know how she could rescue him from the others.

In her waking dreams she sometimes rescues him, but things are not the same. In her waking dreams she sometimes is recaptured and killed. In her waking dreams she sees his lifeless body, beaten and left in the middle of a clearing. And she dwells on this image, torturing herself in the knowledge that his demise has come about directly because of her.

She walks slowly but with increasing confidence across the sand, concentrating almost more than she could imagine necessary in order to move. She uses the pain to help her focus and prevent her mind conjuring up even more graphic scenarios.

She is successful. But eventually the pain and effort exhausts her, and she returns to sitting on the beach, watching the water advance and recede.

"Do you think things will ever be the same?" Claire asks her. "I mean, the way they were when Jack was around?"

"He'll be back," she tells Claire defiantly. But she is less confident than she appears.

Because she finds that the more she thinks of him, and his returning to them, the further he seems to be out of reach.

And she finds herself struggling against tears.

---

_Seconds slowly turn into minutes, which eventually give way to hours. She has no accurate way of keeping time, and her mind is unable to remain focused on keeping track. _

_She is calmer than before; the passing minutes bring no news of Sawyer's whereabouts, and it is both futile and emotionally demanding to maintain her levels of anger and panic. She is increasingly worried, fearing not only what they are doing to him, but their intentions and what will happen to her and Jack. _

_She begins to allow thoughts through that there is no way out; that they are going to die: one by one, painfully and torturously slowly. _

_And she knows that entertaining such thoughts for even a moment is disastrous: she needs to have hope and believe that they will escape. Because once she begins to conclude that they will die, then it will be inevitable._

_She is sat against the wall, and she pushes her back further up against it, trying to feel a sensation other than the pressure in her head and the aching of her foot. _

_She looks over at Jack: he sits in a similar position against the wall opposite, but his head is lowered, resting in his hands. She knows that he is taking the weight of this all on himself._

"_It's not your fault," she tells him. _

_He looks up at her, disbelieving, but doesn't reply._

"_It's not your fault," she repeats. _

_He smiles ever so slightly, insincerely, unconvinced. _

"_I need to make it right," she thinks she hears him say, but the words are low and indistinct._

"_Sawyer's gonna be fine and we're gonna make it out of here, remember?" she comments confidently, consciously echoing his earlier words to her, irrelevant of whether she believes them. And this time he smiles wider, still a shadow of his usual smile, but amused regardless._

_She hears a scraping of metal against metal, a sound that she has come to associate with the lock on the door. She quickly looks over at the door as it opens, light streaming through, near blinding her. It closes shortly afterwards, leaving them in their concrete jail, an extra body having joined them._

"_Sawyer!" she exclaims, trying not to be overly emotional. It is irrelevant that they are not as close as they once were; she is overjoyed to see him and makes her way over to him to ensure that he is actually there and alive._

_He moves slowly, unsurely, so un-Sawyer-like. She looks over at Jack, concerned, and notes that he looks equally as anxious._

"_Sawyer?" she queries hesitantly._

"_Freckles?" he replies, his voice slurring._

_Jack takes on his doctor persona, examining his unwilling patient. _

"_Do you know where they took you?" he asks._

"_What?" Sawyer questions warily._

"_What do you last remember?"_

"_Y'know, doc, I appreciate the concern, but I only went to the bathroom."_

"_You've been gone nearly six hours," Jack informs him. _

_There is a look of disbelief._

"_It looks like they sedated you."_

_Silence pervades the room, easing itself uncomfortably into every corner and crevice._

_She is left with only one unspoken question: what the hell do the others want with them?_

---

End part 4


End file.
